


Behind Closed Doors

by mcostar



Series: Above All [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:47:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4531278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcostar/pseuds/mcostar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"You know, Omar, I really don't even care about the thirty Gs," I started, looking at my knuckles as if the most interesting speck of dirt was on them. "I want to know why you felt the need to go and run your mouth to the Feds." Again, just trying to get a reaction out of him.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He remained silent, staring at me in contempt, his chest heaving as he fought to breathe. The guys sure must've done a number on him for him to be this bad.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"What did they offer you? Protection? Money?" I laughed once. "Funny, if you got money from those fucks and still couldn't pay me back—" I cut myself off by punching him in the face. Okay, maybe I was still a little sour about not getting my thirty thousand dollars back.</em>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>Chapter 7 in Zayn's POV. Warning for mild violence and gore</strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind Closed Doors

Hiring Jules at the club was definitely one of my greater decisions, even if it wasn’t really my decision. All of the staff—which was just Niall, Nick, the other bartender, Ant, Danny, and Zaki—loved her and she was actually a really good co-manager, even if it was a bullshit title. She would come visit me in my office from time to time, and she said she felt bad for interrupting me, but I told her she could spend the whole day in there if she really wanted to. She's only been here two weeks, but we were all already so attached to her. I made sure to tell the guys she was off limits, though, before they got any ideas in their heads.

I usually spent Saturday nights in my office—I spent _every_ night in my office—but decided to show my face on the floor tonight. Jules had mentioned how she rarely saw me anymore and I felt kind of bad. Plus, my friend, Omar, was rolling through with a late delivery.

Jules didn't know this because she wasn't here on Wednesdays (which I'd purposely arranged), but Wednesdays were my collection nights. All my guys came through wielding thick envelopes with their payment for the week. Omar was in some trouble a few weeks ago, needed thirty grand to save his ass, and I was feeling generous and loaned it to him. He said he'd pay me back in three weeks, and Zaki vouched for him so I figured I could trust him. Of course, come Wednesday night that fuck said he didn't have the money and tried to deliver some sob story about his sick wife, or daughter, whatever—I didn't give a fuck. I gave him till tonight to have my fifteen grand or else his ass was on the chopping block.

I laughed while I watched my cousin flirt with Jules, who effectively shut him down by stomping on the kiss he'd blown her. Maybe I was some sick motherfucker, but I really enjoyed watching her. It was one of my favorite pastimes while I was at Midnight because I learned something new about her just from studying the way she interacted with people. She and Niall were close, always joking around even though he kept giving her watered-down drinks. And she noticed it every time, usually knocking him one over the head. She could hold her liquor, still going strong even after some of her guido friends were passed out on the floor. I watch everyone since it was my job to be on top of things (owning a nightclub in the middle of enemy territory had trained me to be aware of my surroundings at all times), but I always found my gaze drifting towards her. Weird.

Someone cleared their throat and I was pulled out of my thoughts to see Omar wringing his hands above me. I fought the urge to roll my eyes as I took a sip from my glass of water. Tonight could go two ways, and I needed to have a clear head in case I had to bring him down to the cellar. I was kind of wishing he _didn't_ have the money—it had been a while since I'd roughed someone up. We had caused a big fuss when we first arrived in New York, the Feds poking around and bringing people in for questioning. We've been laying low lately and I was itching to get my hands dirty.

Ant, Danny, Zaki, and Omar all watched me nervously, wondering what I would do.

"I hope you're hiding an envelope in those twitching hands of yours," I said, casting him a pointed glance as I set my glass back on the table.

Omar gulped. “I-I tried, sir,” he stuttered in Urdu and I rolled my eyes, remembering that he couldn’t speak English that well. “My daughter, she's very sick—”

I held my hand up, and he shut his mouth with a snap. I turned to Zaki. “I thought you said I could trust this fuck?” I switched back to English, not caring if Omar could understand me.

Zaki squirmed uncomfortably. “You can! Just give him some more time—”

I waved a hand at his stuttering ass, too, knowing I’d deal with him later. I turned my attention back to Omar, who was starting to sweat. “You see, Omar, I lent you that money under the impression that you’d pay me back, no problem. And I understand—you're new to the country, it’s tough over here—but you had weeks to get it together. That money I lent you, it was gonna be used to buy my mother something nice for her birthday. But instead, I gave it to _you_ , and what the fuck did you do with it, anyway?” I looked around me. “Burn that shit? How much trouble were you in that you needed thirty thousand dollars?”

“Please, Mr. Malik, give me another week—”

“And I would,” I started, “but word’s gotten around that you’ve been talking to the Feds.”

Everyone around me froze, and I watched Omar to see if my words had gotten a reaction out of him. I was bullshitting—the Feds haven't bothered us for almost a year now—but he wouldn’t meet my eyes, wringing his hands together and I wondered if he did actually have something to hide.

I sighed. “Take him out back.”

Omar started pleading to me again while Zaki and Danny began to escort him out the back door, but I ignored him, my eyes scanning the room. I saw Jules staring at us, probably thinking she was hidden by the shadows, but made no indication that I’d noticed her. I was kind of curious to see what she would do, if she would follow after us.

I made a detour before I went outside, stopping at my office. I opened my desk drawer to grab my nine, screwing the silencer on before stuffing it in the waistband of my pants. I left the office, pushing open the back door and shivering a little in the cool air. I hope Jules has a jacket.

When we first bought this club we had no clue the cellar existed. We were just looking for a discreet place to set up shop, someplace to be the control center of our organization. One of my father's guys had stumbled upon it one day and it was everything we could've dreamed of. This building was supposed to be a temporary fix, but we ended up buying it and transforming it into a nightclub. After the first few years of running the club, my father passed it down to me while he set up some law firm in the city.

Omar was already tied up when I finally got down to the cellar. He was already beaten up pretty bad, which led me to believe Ant, Danny, and Zaki were just as eager as I was to finally be _doing something._

I shrugged out of my suit jacket, handing it to Zaki as I walked towards Omar. He looked resigned, as if he knew this was coming. I grabbed one of the chairs in the room and pulled it up to him, sitting backwards.

"You know, Omar, I really don't even care about the thirty Gs," I started, looking at my knuckles as if the most interesting speck of dirt was on them. "I want to know why you felt the need to go and run your mouth to the Feds." Again, just trying to get a reaction out of him.

He remained silent, staring at me in contempt, his chest heaving as he fought to breathe. The guys sure must've done a number on him for him to be this bad.

"What did they offer you? Protection? Money?" I laughed once. "Funny, if you got money from those fucks and still couldn't pay me back—" I cut myself off by punching him in the face. Okay, maybe I was still a little sour about not getting my thirty thousand dollars back.

I scrunched my face, not really feeling it. I wasn't sure what to do next since my guys had already did it for me, and the rush of a fresh kill just wasn't doing it tonight. Had all that time being on my best behavior made me soft? Was I losing my touch?

Something shifted in the air and I stiffened, knowing we were being watched. I didn't even have to turn around to know it was Jules, almost being able to _feel_ her standing there.

_Weird._

Omar noticed her, too, leaning a little to get a better look.

"Is that your girlfriend?" He asked too low for anyone behind me to hear. I didn't answer him. "She's very pretty, but perhaps she should get back to her place in the kitchen before she breaks a nail."

He laughed at his lame ass joke, and I laughed, too, reaching into my pants to pull out my pocketknife. What year is this, 2008? This dumb fuck is still making kitchen jokes?

I laughed while I stabbed the knife into his shoulder, twisting it a little before dragging it down the length of his arm. He started screaming, which made me laugh even harder. _This_ is that high I was looking for, and I almost wanted to thank Jules for showing up and making things interesting.

I bent low to whisper in his ear, "I wonder what your wife is doing right now. Do you think she's in the kitchen? Maybe I should pay her a visit."

He spit on me, and because I was already fucked in the head I dug the knife into his stomach. I cut him wide open, the Joker popping into my head as I curved it like a smiley face. I heard Zaki gagging behind me as his intestines spilled out but I let it slide—the kid was still kind of new to this, and that shit was pretty disgusting. Sighing, I stood up straight and popped him one between the eyes. I stepped to the side so they could do the same, noticing Zaki's was a little off center than Ant and Danny's. Me and him were gonna have to take a little ride later.

I turned around, staring directly at Jules so she'd know I hadn't forgotten about her. She looked so shaken up, her face just as green as Zaki's, and I started to rethink having her follow us down here. Her father was Nicolas Payne, I'd figured she'd seem shit like this before, but obviously I was wrong. I was about to go over and see if she was alright when one of her goons—those guys who wore all black and always stood in the corner—showed up behind her. She was in good hands, so I turned back to my guys, who were cleaning up Omar and his various parts.

"Ant, Danny, just get the blood—throw his guts and shit in the trash. Zaki and I will take care of the body," I told them.

"What?" Zaki asked, his face—somehow, impossibly—growing paler.

I chuckled. "You heard me. You gotta learn how to get rid of a body just like the rest of us. Ant, make sure you bleach the hell out of this room—it fucking stinks."

Ant laughed, using his gloved hand to push Omar out of his chair. "I think our friend had a little accident."

I was on my way out the door, turning my head to see what he was talking about. I lost it when I saw Omar's brown-stained pants; this fuck, talking shit the whole time and yet he couldn't keep his shit up his ass. That was fucking funny, and I laughed all the way up the stairs and back to my office. I wondered if Jules was still here, guessing that was her puddle of vomit outside. I didn't see her out on the floor, though, and decided it would be better if she was at home getting some sleep. Fuck, I wish I could get some sleep, but I had to babysit Zaki's ass to make sure he didn't screw anything up. Personally, I would be fine with dumping Omar anywhere, making sure he was found washed-up on the Jersey Shore, but Zaki needed to learn, and now was just as good a time as any.

I grabbed my keys, going out the back and walking around front to get my car and pull it up to the back entrance. My clothes were covered in blood, and I would've caused a scene walking through the club. By the time I walked back down to the cellar, Ant and Danny had poured so much bleach on the floor that if I were to light a match the whole place would've blew up, the fumes enough to knock me out. It was spotless, though, not a speck of blood anywhere, Omar zipped up in a body bag. I was proud of cousins for working so fast.

I motioned for Zaki to give me a hand as we hauled Omar up the stairs and into the trunk on my car. He was about to hop into the passenger's side when I shook my head, pushing him towards the driver's seat. His hands were shaking as he buckled his seatbelt and gripped the steering wheel. He started the car, about to pull out of the alley when he stopped.

"Um," he started nervously. "Where are we going?"

"The deli."

"Do you know how many delis there are in Brooklyn?" He snapped back, and I blamed it on the nerves.

That still didn't stop me from popping him on the mouth.

"Sorry," he said, his eyes cast down. "But which deli?"

"Do you know where Abdul's is?" I asked.

He nodded, and started towards Abdul's Deli. I instructed for him to go around back, and he helped me drag Omar to the back door. I set my end down while I dug around for the key that unlocked the door, turning off the alarm when I got it open.

"Put him up on the counter," I said, helping Zaki lift Omar's body into the long, silver table in the middle of the room. I didn't turn on any lights, instead turning on the shredder and grabbing a cleaver from the separate drawer Abdul keeps them in.

I handed it to Zaki. "Get to chopping," I said.

He blanched. "W-what?"

I didn't even bother to sigh at his paled face. "Chop off his arms and legs, and hand them to me to I can put them in the meat shredder. It's easier if you cut at the joints."

When Zaki made no indication that he was going to do anything but stare at the large knife like an idiot, I grabbed it from his hands. In one swift move I disconnected Omar's arm from his elbow. Like a dick, I waved it in front of Zaki's face just to mess with him before I shoved it into the shredder, wincing at the crunch the bones made. This had always been my least favorite job, which is why I usually got other people to do it for me.

I handed the knife back to Zaki, and he got the memo this time, closing his eyes as he chopped off Omar's other arm. We worked in silence, Zaki cutting off limbs, me stuffing them into the shredder, and we were finished in under an hour. I patted him on the back as we walked out of the deli.

"You did good, kid."

He smiled, but it was tired and broken down. We just had one more stop before I could let him go home, letting him get in the passenger seat this time while I drove us back to Midnight. We entered through the back, and I lead him to my office where I had him strip down and stuff his clothes into a garbage bag. I gave him one of the extra sets of clothes I kept in here, pointing him in the direction of the bathroom at the back of the office. I gave him one last pat on the back before he walked out, going into the bathroom myself to wash the dried blood off my hands. Zaki had done better than I thought he would, a lot better than I had my first trip to the deli.

I vigorously scrubbed my hands, glancing in the mirror to see that my eyes were blown out, my hair all over the place. I had bags under my eyes, the adrenaline from earlier—the little that I'd had—running out as exhaustion took over me. I wiped a wet hand over my face, wanting nothing more than to go home, but at the same time not wanting to go anywhere. The thought of going to an empty apartment and cold bed didn't sound appealing, and I still had an hour until the club closed. I knew I could trust Niall to lock up, changing into a clean set of clothes before curling up on the futon I'd just added in the office. I briefly thought about calling Jules, but I didn't want to interrupt her if she was sleeping. The club was closed on Sundays, but I could always just stop by her house tomorrow to make sure she was alright. I couldn't help but wonder if I was off my game earlier because I knew she was standing there. It was a solid theory, but I couldn't be bothered with such complex thinking with the state I was in, reaching up to flick off the light and finally go to sleep.


End file.
